Day 38, 39, 40 - Bullhead City, AZ - RPI

Monday (38) - Windy as of last night. By this morning, the gusts were down to 54 mph. We went ahead and brought in all of the slides and things quieted down significantly after that. The noise was from the really worn out slide toppers flapping. We plan on replacing the fabric this winter.

This is the view from the campground towards the Colorado River and Laughlin, NV. The large casinos are across the river on the Nevada side. The wind is from the north so it was blowing straight towards you while standing in this location. 

By 6pm the wind seems to have died down. 

Tuesday (39) - The sites here are pretty nice and it looks like we may need to extend our stay. Which isn’t necessarily a bad thing as I like this rv park. Nice location, nice scenery, and I like the pool and jacuzzi. 

Now the reason for the extension is, guess what, that Caterpillar C7 engine again. The water pump is leaking from the front seal or from the weep hole. Either way, the water pump will need to be replaced. I am waiting for a call back from a mobile diesel repair shop in Laughlin, NV. They are looking to see about scheduling a time for the repair. It sort of depends on parts availability. This is a picture looking up from under the engine. The block is at the bottom of the picture.

This is a photo of the weep hole just behind and under the pulley. This engine uses a separate v-belt for just the water pump. A serpentine belt is used for the other accessories. This is not an unusual problem for the smaller Cat engines according to YouTube (AdeptApe, author of some incredibly useful videos). There is even a video on replacing the water pump on this series of engines. I had even considered having the water pump replace proactively last year when we were in Tucson having the rest of the cooling system worked on. 20/20 hindsight says I should've…

My Wednesday(30) - It turns out that this RV park has a second pool and jacuzzi. It’s near the entrance building which also has a small store and deli. 

The last shop I called that had mobile mechanics, mentioned that they could do the job but are based out of Las Vegas so there would be about some significant travel time. I found another business that had a mechanic out of Kingman, AZ. We’ll see how they do. Since we wanted the job done quickly, Bridget is driving into Henderson, NV, to pick up the part. This means a second trip to get our core deposit back. 

She mentioned bumper-to-bumper traffic near the casinos in Laughlin due to a Trump rally but called back later that traffic had cleared up and she should be able to make it to the CAT shop before it closes. 

In the short video you can see that the water pump bearings and seals are shot.